I gather from the newspaper reports of one of your meetings that we shall probably hear soon of an expedition traversing New Guinea from end to end. It gives me great pleasure to present to your Society my survey and some of my notes on the Fly River. I had no means of finding the longitude, but the difference of latitude by traverse and by astronomical observation agree within a few miles, so I think the departure cannot be very much astray.

The Royal Geographical Society of England has a tracing of this plan without the notes, and the editor of the Town and Country Journal has the finished drawing, of which this is only the rough copy.

If your expedition elect to traverse the south-west slopes of the dividing range, this river will be an easy way to send by canoe to Marwater ana Thursday Island any of the party who may knock up.

I have no hesitation in stating my conviction that a river as large as, or larger than the Fly, will be discovered draining the area between that and the Outernata River, and I strongly suspect it will be found to empty itself into Dourga Straits. Any one familiar with mangrove-skirted shores will readily understand how easily an opening two or even three miles wide may be passed and never noticed, especially as the Dutch lieutenant who made the survey of Dourga Straits had a vessel of some considerable draught to keep afloat.